


Meme Ficlet: Small

by greywash



Series: Meme Ficlets (Spring 2012... and onward) [24]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-02
Updated: 2012-07-02
Packaged: 2017-11-09 02:05:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/450059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greywash/pseuds/greywash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Meme ficlet, archived off Tumblr; unbeta'ed and un-Britpicked.</em>
</p>
<p><strong>Anonymous requested</strong>: Does 6 believe in God? Does 13? Would they argue about it?</p>
<p>
  <strong>6. Henry Knight</strong>
  <br/><strong>13. Molly</strong>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meme Ficlet: Small

"Really?" Henry sets his glass down, looking over at her. "That surprises me, a little."

"Why should it surprise you?" she says. It comes out flat; she can't help it. This was going so well, too.

Henry's eyes widen. "Oh, no," he says, leaning forward, suddenly flustered. "I didn't mean—" It's hard to tell, in this light, but she thinks he's going pink.

"I'm not—a fundamentalist, or anything." She clears her throat. "But."

"It just seems like it's less common," he says. "I mean. Among scientists."

Molly frowns. "I—I don't know that that's true, actually."

Henry shifts. He looks so uncomfortable that she very nearly drops the subject. It's their fourth time out, their second proper date, really, probably; and she likes him. She likes the way his ears stick out and that he stammers when he's flustered and smiles at her, nervous and sweet, before he kisses her, not quite so nervous, not quite so sweet, at her door. But it's important to her, is the thing. If she lets it go now, something small will go sour between them, and she might get a second chance to sort it, but she also might not. She doesn't want to take that chance.

"I mean." Molly shifts. "I think you're right," she says, careful and slow, "that most scientists—most critical thinkers in general, really—don't believe in a god who looks like your grandfather and sits up somewhere and deliberately and controls the behavior of every atom and cell, who makes—who makes things happen in ways that fundamentally can't be explained. All right?"

"All right," Henry says, nodding.

"But I know plenty of scientists who see something... transcendent, you know?" She hunches her shoulders. "Just in the... you know, the workings of the universe. The observable workings of the universe."

"But science cares about what it can prove," Henry says. "It seems like the existence of God rather falls outside that."

"Yeah." Molly smiles at him. " _Outside_ , though. Not _opposed to_. Faith isn't—faith doesn't have to be rational. If you require it to be rational, if your faith requires proof, it's—it's not faith anymore, really, is it?"

He nods slowly. Molly picks up her drink. "So what do you believe, then?" he asks, watching her face.

Molly swallows, then sets her glass down. "I think—if you take it from the Big Bang," she says, "through the formation of stars and planets and galaxies, through a single planet's formation of an atmosphere and its primordial ooze and the first sparks of single-celled life, through the dinosaurs and multiple extinction-level events and ice ages, and at some point you get to a species that can think about where it came from, that fundamentally wants to know, that fundamentally wants to improve and do better, that can create sound and images for no reason other than that they are pleasing, and that constantly tries to make connections within itself and between itself and the world around it—well." She hunches her shoulders. Her eyes are stinging, for no reason. 

She says, "It just sometimes makes me feel very—very small, that's all."

Henry sets his left hand against her right on the table, his thumb just brushing against her wrist. Molly rubs her left hand across her eyes.

"Sometimes I feel that way when I listen to music," he says, quietly.

She nods, and turns her hand up.


End file.
